Basejumper.com - archive

........ please be careful out there........

Yeah no kidding man.

What's the timeline breakdown of deaths as a function of country of jumper origin? Aussie's, Americans, Russians, Northwest Europeans, Britons?

RIP to those fellow fliers.

With more and more ... and yet even more jumpers getting into BASE, the increase in fatalities should not be unexpected (and I'm likely part of the "more" group who got into the sport back in '04).

While not BASE specific (it was geared towards some swooping incidents), here is a post that was made by yours truly less than 3 months ago after some Eloy Holiday Boogie fatalities and part of the post speaks of my last "close" call.

So who is next? You? Me? Probably someone else ... but rest assured someone is next.

There has been little to no innovation in gear or instruction in the last five years (with all due respect to the manufacturers, you guys are doing great stuff!). So with increased BASE participation and risk probabilities at the same level as five years ago, it's no wonder we see more fatalities.

We're at roughly one a month these days. I would not be surprised to see it grow to two or three a month over the next ten years, unless somebody comes up with a radical gear or instructional innovation.

My way of dealing with it is through reduced participation. I used to pro-actively pursue contact with other jumpers around the world, just to chat about the thing we love most. These days, I have a small group of people that I jump my lovely local sites with. Sure I'm missing out on a chance to make great new friends. But in a rapidly growing sport like this one, I can't afford to keep up, lest the fatality rate catches up to me.

Those are all good points, and I've always thought in a similar way. I've tried to analyze the Fatality List in all kinds of ways looking for a common denominator. Something where I could say, "Hey guys, just stop doing [this, that, or whatever] and you'll live longer."

But I can't find anything other than, and it sounds ridiculously simplistic, but the more you jump the more chance you stand to be killed. It's why for years I've been preaching the only thing that makes sense to me. And that's for people to slow down, that it's not a numbers game, and that Carl Boenish was correct almost thirty years ago when he said, "BASE jumps are not meant to be gulped down like skydives."

One thing about the List that can be said is it's certainly weighted toward the side of "experienced" jumpers. Almost no one dies on their very first BASE jump, or even the first few, as those are maybe 4 or 5 out of the 110 listed deaths.

As for gear or instructional innovation saving us, I'm not so sure. I believe even if we could build 100 percent foolproof gear along with bombproof instruction we'd still find ways of killing ourselves. It's the death wave. That part of us that is always hanging out there just a little bit past the line of what's possible.

Let's look at BASE gear in relation to skydiving gear. When I started skydiving in the mid-1970s it was on military surplus gear and that gear was very complicated. By the 1980s "sport" parachuting gear was moving toward being simple. Gone where the main ripcords, the multiple pins and cones, and the two and even three step cutaway systems. Nowadays skydiving gear has moved back to complicated again with collapsible PCs, AADs, RSLs and Skyhooks. But the end result of all that back and forth is nil as the fatality rate seems about the same.

BASE rigs, in contrast, began with the idea simple is better and that worked pretty well for us throughout the 1980s. So we added aerials, wing suits, and all the rest which made the sport more attractive to new participants. We also upgraded our instructional methods from none when I started, to mentorship, to the real courses we have now. But we are dying faster than ever. So it doesn't seem to me any innovation in either of those mentioned areas will do the trick as it never has before.

Now let's look at that double edged sword called currency vs safety. For years we've tried to find the perfect mix between the two. Are you safer making a few BASE jumps a year or 50 BASE jumps a year? I don’t know the answer to that as we are all different. Some listen to their inner man, and know when to back off, while some others don’t even know they have an inner man.

All this leads me to one conclusion and it's the same one I started with. It would be easiest to state the position as this: If you have 1000 BASE jumps in your logbook call it a career, and go find a comfortable rocking chair to sit in. But I also know that doesn't work as we humans never, "get there." As we reach a certain level we always feel we can do better, we know there is more to learn, and more to do. It's natural to feel that way.

But as I get older I don't feel so much that way anymore. I feel like I've perfected the type of jump I do the most and that's the garden variety 3 and 4 second delay off the Flatiron Building in the middle of the night. I really don't feel I could get any better at doing that and if anything I'm probably going the other way as my body and mind slows down with age. But what does all that really mean to my own chances of being killed?

I don’t know, so I tend to look at it like this. Forget our increasing numbers, forget the gear equations, and forget currency vs experience. A certain percentage of us will somehow always be selected for death. What that mechanism of selection is I don’t know. Some may be doomed to it from their very first jump, or it may just be a matter of one night you turned left at some particular corner while driving downtown instead of turning right.

And I know we fool ourselves a bit. BASE jumping is a very cool thing, it's a shit load of fun, and a great social lifestyle, but like every unusual endeavor there is a price to be paid. When I add someone to the Fatality List I always feel the price we all owe is being extracted. Its why when I broke both my legs and spent a year in plaster I often feel I paid something in advance and somehow fate will be kinder to me. It's sort of my way of looking at Tom Aiello's luck bucket.

But I know, even as it makes me feel better, the real truth is probably closer to what Ernie Gann wrote so many years ago, "Fate is the hunter." And to that I'll add, "And it's blind as a bat too . . ."

NickD
BASE 194

Finally something worth reading.

A true risk analysis will never be available since no one knows what the whole community is doing with jump style, jump numbers, jump objects, etc. The dropzones are a relatively controlled environment whereas many sections of base are underground, secret, and solitary.

I wonder what the numbers would look like if we could have an accurate count of injuries?

My guess (note the emphasis on the word "guess") is that very serious injuries happen to experienced jumpers (much like fatalities), but that relatively minor injuries (mostly landing injuries, either as a result of choosing the wrong landing area, taking a downwinder, or just screwing up the landing itself) are more likely to happen to beginner.

How can you be so sure about this? I'd guess we jump a whole lot more than ever, so maybe this assumption is all wrong.

The development of "what the whole community is doing with jump style, jump numbers, jump objects, etc" has everything to with it as well. But wouldn't the level of relative individual danger within our group be more or less constant as long as the activity attracts the same kind of personalities. I mean the degree of pushing our boundries as a group is probably not changing that much. Or?

That random "Black Death" factor has been lurking for millennia and will continue to lurk no matter what we do.

I wish you were right. It's what makes it so hard to figure out. I'd like to be able to say the silver lining is as we add to List we are actually doing better . . .

But I don’t think you are correct. I should have said the ratio between life and death seems unchanging. The number of increasing deaths is shadowing the increasing number of jumpers.

NickD
BASE 194

more jumps more fatalityes..
I think that BASEjumpers genneraly are pushing too hard.. i mean why would a person whith less than 100BASE start doing arials? As i had 100 jumps i were out there trying to calculate the risk on objects and opening new objects..

People progress too fast and become "experienced" too fast..

Yes experienced jumpers dies.. they push the limits(some of them),some fatalityes also could happen to newjumpers..

More new jumpers I meet seem less scared than the older jumpers I meet.... It does seem that the newer jumpers coming into the sport are not as scared than alot of people that have been in the sport for a good few years, but also alot less scared in their formative years than we all were when we first started....

Exposure to BASE through what ever medium seems to null some people from the start..... this is dangerous in my opinion...

When I did my FJC I had never seen a BASE jump or seen a BASE video.... and you know what, I am glad I went in so raw.... watching all the videos and footage now I feel I would have felt a little more like "so what"

With the epidemic rise in canopy collisions since December, You can pretty much throw that statement out the window.

In a sense this is my theory. And there is not much we can do about it, apart from not showing anyone the door.

I don't believe gear development is ever going to help the statistics. It doesn't affect it all. And I don't think education has anything to do with it either. If there is a connection it's probably that good education and good gear makes more people start jumping and the list increases. Yet the relative fatality rate stays the same.

example: "i mean why would a person whith less than 100BASE start doing arials?"
Because with the good gear and the good education, that's what it takes to make him tick. It used to be figuring out how to survive taking the stoneage skydiving gear off a building. It's exactly the same.

As long as "high sensation seekers" (yes I know it's worn out) are attracted to this activity, we will have a pretty much fixed fatality rate. No matter what we do people are looking (aren't we all) to push their limit. So by having splendid gear and the best education the limit has just shifted. That doesn't mean we won't push it, where ever it is.

The question is how can we affect the numbers. My theory:
1- by not bringing people into this activity, the additions to the list (numbers/year) will drop
2- by attracting other personalities ("low sensation seekers", i.e. stamp collectors) the rate will drop

So what is it we want actually? Do we want the numbers down, or do we want the rate down?
Both of course. Easy, just stop jumping.

then add the worlds most safest exitpoint were many get their fjc.. after a few jumps they learn to pull off arials,unpacked ect ect its a hole different ball game when they see the real side of BASElife(not that the legal S aint a real jump),urban envioment wont forgive so easy..

Then we see a new side of the sport,big wall tracking/flying,taking human flight to the next level.. Its many people dreams and some might start doing it before they know truly what they go into..My bet is that we will see alot of dead people impacting a wall in freefall in the furture..

I wont judge people nd tell them what to do,but ask people to do it safe as posible. Im not really that interested in seeing the fatality list growing,but it will.
As soon as BASE became evrymans sport/hobby we started ruin the sport to our selfs,more dead and injuryed= less chance to get legal safe spots...

Just my oppinion..
we all some how took part of it,we desided not to be a regulated group,and we like it so.. the price is high and we will pay for it,as its not up to us to deside who to die or who to live..

I hope i some day walk away saying that im done jumping,that day hopefuly occure before i die...